Review: The Iron Trial by Holly Black & Cassandra Clare

The Iron Trial 

by Holly Black & Cassandra Clare

Publisher- Scholastic

Realeased- Sept 9th 2014

Pre-Order- Amazon / B & N 

From NEW YORK TIMES bestselling authors Holly Black and Cassandra Clare comes a riveting new series that defies what you think you know about the world of magic.
From two bestselling superstars, a dazzling and magical middle-grade collaboration centering on the students of the Magisterium, an academy for those with a propensity toward magic. In this first book, a new student comes to the Magisterium against his will -- is it because he is destined to be a powerful magician, or is the truth more twisted than that? It's a journey that will thrill you, surprise you, and make you wonder about the clear-cut distinction usually made between good and evil.

My Thoughts: 

The Iron Trial, is the first book in the Magisterium series and what  I believe is a strong and promising start to a brilliant dark magical world. I've read a few books by Holly Black and I'm already a mega-huge fan of Cassandra Clare's Shadowhunter world, so I couldn't wait to see what these two authors together would bring into the written world. I don't read very many middle-grade books, with only the HP and Percy Jackson books amongst my favourites, but the minute I heard that Clare and Black were tackling magic for kids, I knew I had to get my grabby hands on the first installment. This book was such a blast and instantly loved!

First off, the storyline was made of awesome! Clare and Black took there time coming up with a fantastic story making it a shinny and new universe to want to play in. They make an amazing team. The writing is smooth, the pacing and flow of the story was perfectly pitched and I couldn't tell from one author to the next who wrote what. It was in-sync and blended strongly and beautifully throughout the entire length of the novel. There were some moments and similarities that did reminded me of the great boy wizard, but it didn't take anything away from my overall entertainment and experience. World will inevitably collide when writing about magic in a magical school setting, but I still think that this book is entirely it's own. I loved the concept of bending the elements of air, fire, water, earth and chaos with magical control. The history, secrets and prophecy were mysterious and alluring. The Devoured souls and chaos-ridden animals were a fantastical touch to the already dark and haunting setting and the Magisterium itself was filled with creepy wonderment. 

The moment I meet Callum, I knew I was going to love him. He's the kind of kid that makes life interesting and has a great voice and personality. Even though he has a bad leg and practically a social-leper at school, he still has this amusing sarcastic side to him that's funny instead of bitter. He's always been taught that the school is a place of monsters, and yet apart of him wants to believe it may be a good place for someone like him despite his fears and insecurities. Aaron is one of those great characters that is good, kind, supportive, loyal and believes in you no matter what anyone says. He's got the most to prove, but no one really to prove it too. Tamara was a bit cold and unfeeling at the start of the book so it wasn't always easy to like her. She's under a lot of pressure from her family to succeed , but eventually Tamara becomes her own person and I love what she brought into the trio. Together, Callum, Aaron and Tamara make an amazing team. They already have each others back during some of their more challenging adventures and have great chemistry and witty banter. There are also a lot of other characters that I loved, each of them bringing in the perfect blend of conflicts and friendships. It's gonna be a fun five years at the Magisterium with this lot. I really loved that ending. What a shocker! I was surprised we learned the big revelation at the end of this book, but I think it makes for a rather clever and intriguing turn of events. I think we're not getting the entire picture mind you, but still, it makes me wonder just how Callum will play this out in future books and how it will impact the other characters. Very interesting indeed.

All in all, I couldn't have loved a book more! The twist and turns were crazy fun, gripping and unpredictable. The world building was remarkably creative, the writing was brilliant and these characters stole my heart from minute one. Fast paced and blast to read, The Magisterium is my new favourite world!

Find the authors:

Holly Black- Goodreads / Website

Cassandra Clare- Goodreads / Website

                                                                            

                                                                           5 Snowflakes

Review: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

The Coldest Girl on Coldtown by Holly Black
Published on September 3, 2013
Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers

Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown’s gates, you can never leave.

One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a wholly original story of rage and revenge, of guilt and horror, and of love and loathing from bestselling and acclaimed author Holly Black.

My Thoughts:
Okay I am definitely in the minority here.  I really want to hide while I write this because I know I am probably going to catch hale here but I didn't love this.  I didn't even really like it to be honest.  Instead of writing a somewhat ranty review I am just going to list and explain the things I did not like that way hopefully no one gets offend or upset by my thoughts.  Here goes...

1. The Vampires:
Okay see I have read many vampire books and while yes they are usually always dangerous there is always that fine line that they will fall either one way or the other.  If they are bad then they are really bad and creepy and EVERYONE runs away screaming then they fall on one side.  If they are not bad meaning yes they drink blood but they are romanticized and don't the main ones in the book do everything in their power to not kill people then they fall on the other side.  Blacks vampires don't really fall into either category and it bugged me.  She created monsters that took no regard for human life but then let her main heroine fall for one...yep bugged person right here.  Why is she kissing a vampire, one that is supposed to be the worst one of them all??  And in this story some people wanted to be vampires and they would do just about anything to become one and then in the next paragraph we are told how vile these creatures are and how no one can go out after dark.  I still don't understand which side of the line these vampires were on and I need to know for my own personal preference.

2. Inconsistency
This story has a lot of loop holes in my opinion.  We are told once you are on Coldtown there is no getting out.  Okay got it, but then somethings happen and it comes out that a few vampires that are at a particular party were actually at the party that Tana escaped from in her hometown which is not a Coldtown.  How did the vampires get in and out??  We aren't even given an explanation!  Why make rules for your world if you are just going to disregard them??  I am also baffled by the whole new vampire, infection, old vampire system.  I never grasped the whole process of becoming a vampire and I blame this on inconsistency.  We are told so many different things and in my mind everything became jumbled.  Not to mention the whole new born vampire thing where they are supposedly crazy, but then when Tana's friend turns he is okay after ripping into only 2 people.  I thought newborns were crazy for awhile??

3. Too Much Description
I am a fan of world building.  If I read something then I want to know the ins and outs of everything but there has to be more than just that.  Black over describe everything.  I didn't need to know what everyone was wearing and how the sun looked in every chapter.  It just got to be too much.  I needed more story and development.

4. The Story
Okay this is my biggest complaint.  I felt like the author focused more on describing things than actually writing a story.  I didn't feel anything when the main character went through the big climax of the story.  It was like oh okay that happened big whoppee.  There wasn't enough character development for me to really feel for her and sympathize.  You know the whole story felt like a dangling carrot.  I could almost grab it and then something would happen and it would be stolen from me yet again.  There were a lot of storylines and side characters that jumbled everything else up too.  I still don't honestly know what this story was supposed to be about, I get what I read but if that was the story then I was really deceived.  Nothing really happened except for a crazy vampires revenge and a strange turn of events for the main character.  No big scenes except for maybe 2 if you really want to call them big and nothing is really resolved.  I was bored and not invested which does not ever make for a good read in my opinion.  And you know I remember reading a short story written by this author about this world and I loved it so I am really disappointed that this full length novel didn't work out for me.

Okay that's it, my complaints.  I got a little ranty and I am sorry for that.  I hope you don't take my word for it I know lots of people who loved this book so please give it a shot.  As for me I am going to stick with a different set of vampires.

2 Snowflakes

Teaser Tuesday, #50 THE COLDEST GIRL IN COLDTOWN by Holly Black

Welcome to Teaser Tuesdays! Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: Grab your current read Open to a random page Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My Teaser Tuesday is for the following...



The Coldest Girl In Coldtown by Holly Black
Publisher: Little, Brown Books For Young Readers
Publication Date: September 3, 2013






*Teasers from Page 13*

"Pushing herself to stand, she started picking her way across the floor, trying to ignore the way the carpet crunched under her bare feet, trying not to think about the smell of decay blooming in the room."

"Which made her wonder if there could still be a vampire in this house, the vampire who had slaughtered all these people"


PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT with either the link to your own Teaser Tuesdays post, or share your ‘teasers’ in a comment here if you don’t have a blog Thanks!

Review & Giveaway: Rags & Bones by Melissa Marr & Others

Rags & Bones by Melissa Marr & Others
Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers
Release Date: October 22, 2013
Purchase: Amazon / Barnes & Noble

The best writers of our generation retell the classics.

Literature is filled with sexy, deadly, and downright twisted tales. In this collection, award-winning and bestselling authors reimagine their favorite classic stories, ones that have inspired, awed, and enraged them; ones that have become ingrained in modern culture; and ones that have been too long overlooked. They take these stories and boil them down to their bones, and then reassemble them for a new generation of readers.

My Thoughts:
I am usually not a huge fan of anthologies or short stories, but when I saw that the line up included in Rags & Bones I just had to get my hands on a copy!  I am so thankful that I did give this one chance because it was truly amazing.

Every story in this book was awesome and no I am not kidding.  Most short stories leave me feeling very unsatisfied and some tend to make me feel like I have stepped into the middle of a story, but the wonderful authors in this one had everything times perfectly and I can't honestly think of one bad thing to say about any of the stories.

Since I loved every story I thought I would just review my top 3 favorites.  Melissa Marr, Holly Black, and Carrie Ryan had in my opinion the strongest stories.  That does not mean that the rest weren't amazing, these three women just caught my attention a little bit more than the rest.

Melissa Marr gives us a look into the dark mind of a human who catches a selchie woman.  This story was deeply disturbing but also heart breaking.  What if you hurt everybody you knew and the only way for you to truly have someone in your life was if you had spellbinding rules that kept you from hurting them.  We get to find out what Leo does with this decision when he captures Eden.  I really fell into this story and Marr's writing like I always do when I read her words.  It was definitely my favorite and I only wish that one day we might see a selchie novel from her.

Carrie Ryan's story was just as fantastic as Marr's but very very different.  In this one we get to see what happens when mankind has to retreat to the Underground and live among the Machine.  The Machine is a place that isolates all humans, but gives them everything they could possibly need at the push of a button.  Food, bath, bed everything is included.  Tavil finds himself thrown into this strange world and after many years he has to decide whether to stay inside the technology filled walls or brave the Surface from which he is from.  I won't tell you what he decides, but I will say it is quite interesting to read his tale.  I think we as a community are so technology driven that it makes me really think about what would happen if this were reality.  I really loved that this story made me think!

And last but not least is Ms. Holly Black.  I love Black and her creepiness and her story was brilliant.  It showed what one will do to keep love at all costs.  I don't want to say too much about this one since it does have a surprise element to it that I loved, so I will just say that you won't be disappointed in this short story.  It is short but it packs an awesome punch that stays true to Ms. Blacks style!

I loved that this anthology was a collection of works inspired by other fairy tales.  It was very interesting to read the authors notes and why they chose what they did to write about.  This book will go on my favorites shelf and I foresee lots of rereading in my furture!

5 snowflakes

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Review: Doll Bones by Holly Black

Doll Bones by Holly Black
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry
Release date:May 7, 2013
Purchase: Amazon / Barnes and Noble

Zach, Poppy and Alice have been friends for ever. They love playing with their action figure toys, imagining a magical world of adventure and heroism. But disaster strikes when, without warning, Zach’s father throws out all his toys, declaring he’s too old for them. Zach is furious, confused and embarrassed, deciding that the only way to cope is to stop playing . . . and stop being friends with Poppy and Alice. But one night the girls pay Zach a visit, and tell him about a series of mysterious occurrences. Poppy swears that she is now being haunted by a china doll – who claims that it is made from the ground-up bones of a murdered girl. They must return the doll to where the girl lived, and bury it. Otherwise the three children will be cursed for eternity . .

My thoughts:
I love Holly Black, she is creeptastic and just all out darkly wonderful. This story *shudders* deals with one of my biggest fears dolls.  Yes I am a grown woman, but growing up I had all these weird mop dolls laying around my house and well I have been terrified ever since.  It probably doesn't help that my cousins use to scare the daylights out of me with them, but anyway that's beside the point.  I have been avoiding reading this because I just knew it would scare me and I was right (I started it last night and I would not go to sleep until my husband did if that tells you anything).  Even though this is middle grade it still gave me goosebumps and I truly loved every single minute of it!

Zach, Poppy, and Alice have basically grown up together and they have created an imaginary game sort of like an RPG if you will.  This game is very important to all three and honestly I was captivated by what they had created. It was an intense game that centers around pirates and this world Game of Thrones time world just like I said with pirates.  Kinda cool if you ask me.  But when Zach's prize action figures get thrown out he is devastated and thinks his days of adventuring are over.  He lies to Poppy and Alice about why he can't play and so the girls decide to get the Queen out for one more round of adventure. The Queen is a china doll that is locked in Poppy's moms cabinet.  This doll is all kinds of creepy and when Poppy takes it out both girls discover that The Queen may have a story of her own.  The three set out together on a quest to put the Queen to rest and along the way they have to figure out ways to coexist with each other and the growing fact that they are all growing up.

The underlining story in this is fantastic.  Everybody eventually does grow up, but you can't forget where you came from and how to have fun.  I loved this story and the characters.  I felt so bad for Zach because he is trapped in this boy world where he is expected to grow up and be a man and not play with action figures.  I just wanted the poor boy to be happy and watching him learn from the quest was awesome.  Each character needed to learn something and in the end I think they all managed to do that.

Now I haven't talked about the doll so I guess I should *looks behind back*  This doll was creepy with a capitol C.  Throughout the story it does (well it never really says for sure if it is the doll but we all know it was) some pretty wicked stuff.  Not harmful mind you just creepy.  I can tell you right now I will never own a doll and if someone brings one into my house I don't think I will be able to sleep until it is gone.  The story behind the doll was way cool and so dark!  I give Ms.Black major props for creating it and I personally think it would make for an amazing story all on its own.

Whew okay moving on. If you are a fan of Ms. Black then you won't want to miss this one.  It is a wonderful addition to her collection that will leave you shuddering for more!

4 snowflakes